Critical Thinking is the most essential 21st century skill but it is still a luxury good. Only 1 out of 10 educators teach critical thinking, and this educator usually only teaches at elite schools or to the most elite students.

THE PROBLEM.

Our world is in urgent needof critical thinkers. But critical thinking is hard to teach.

Critical thinking is the precursor to innovation, a key to college and career readiness and has been linked to more positive life outcomes. The complex global challenges we face today have placed a peak demand for critical thinkers. But our supply is limited because critical thinking is still a luxury good: only 1 of 10 educators teach it, and it’s usually only taught at the best schools or to the best students. This means that most students are taught to ask “what” and “how to” instead of “why” and “what if,” and rarely learn the habits and mindsets needed to apply critical thinking consistently.

THE SOLUTION.

thinkLaw helps educators teach critical thinking to all students using real life-legal cases.

Our comprehensive program of teacher tools, student guides, and virtual coaching is based on real-­life cases because the law’s Socratic questioning methods make it easy for teachers to ask the questions that build student critical thinking skills. And the law speaks to students’ sense of fairness and justice, motivating them to adopt the critical thinking mindsets and habits needed to apply these skills throughout their lives. thinkLaw is also standards-­aligned, allowing teachers to incorporate it into what they are already doing in their classrooms. thinkLaw gives under­-resourced schools with time-­strapped teachers all they need to facilitate critical thinking through engaging discussions, writing assignments, and other learning activities with under 1 hour of initial training and less than 20 minutes of prep time per lesson.

Awards & Fellowships

TFA Shark Tank: The One Day Challenge

Winner

LVNBA Community Service Award

Recipient

TFA Social Innovation Award

Finalist

Governor's Pitch Competition

1st Prize & People’s Choice Award

ACLUNV Community Juvenile Justice Award

Recipient

Echoing Green Fellowship

Finalist

Colin Seale, Teach For America corps member & Founder | CEO of thinkLaw, has always worked tirelessly to make educational equity a realization for his community. He seized the opportunity to get another step closer to reaching his goal during TFA’s 25th Anniversary Summit. Colin delivered an award winning pitch in front of a star-studded cast of Sharks and hundreds of allies at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. on February 6, 2016.

Current, Past and Pilot Users of thinkLaw:

How organizations are using thinkLaw:

Dawson College Bound

“Our program provides academic enrichment to some of the brightest rising 7th and 8th graders in Southern Nevada. thinkLaw allowed us to push students beyond just finding the ‘right’ answer, and forced them to dig deep into their reasoning to find creative ways to identify and solve problems. thinkLaw gave our high-achieving students even more confidence to tackle life’s challenges.”

– Dawson College Bound

Equipo Academy

“I have been using thinkLaw in my Introduction to American Law Class. This resource has been invaluable for preparing my students to tackle thinking about more complex legal issues later in the course. The nature of legal cases (many are engaging and most do not have one clear right answer) forces students to think critically about their reasoning behind their answer. My students improved their ability to analyze evidence more objectively, look at issues from multiple perspectives, and place individual legal cases within the bigger picture of justice and fairness. The cases used are accessible and interesting, fostering high student engagement with the material and impassioned debates and well thought out written work.”

– Equipo Academy

Explore Knowledge Academy

“Explore Knowledge Academy is a technology-infused Project-Based learning charter school. Our model requires our advisors (teachers) to develop interactive engaging lessons for students. We have found that canned curriculum tools often do not meet the mark because they fail to address the dynamic learning needs of our students. This innovative program allows us to seamlessly offer an elective that creates the engaging, evolving structure that our students need, understands our use of technology in our classrooms, and minimizes the time for instructors to plan and prepare lessons. We are so happy that we found the thinkLaw system and would strongly recommend it to other schools as well.”

– Explore Knowledge Academy

IDEA San Benito Academy

“My principal, Patricia Noyola is very passionate about doing best for our scholars. She believes in this program and has involved me to teach it to our 5th graders. I see her vision, and like her, I believe this program will be an asset for our school transformation.”

-Hilda Salinas Briones, 5th Grader Teacher

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